An Ash Wednesday poll

[fivemack]

[Poll #1715686]

Comments

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

By "coffee" I mean Diet Coke, Dr Pepper or similar caffeinated beverages.

[seawasp]

Since I don't drink either alcoholic beverages or coffee, the choice was obvious. And while I'll tolerate broccoli I wouldn't miss it; the others I either don't like, or don't have so giving them up is trivial.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I think if I tried to give up meat that would irritate rjk a lot. I've not tried giving up coffee or alcohol so I don't really know.

[redbird]

I have filled this out literally, despite (a) not being Christian or of any other religion or practice that values asceticism for its own sake, and (b) disliking coffee.

It's early in the morning.

I didn't answer the second question, because I don't think there are "reasonable objects of asceticism." Giving something up because it is harming me is not asceticism, whether that something is nethack or a food I'm allergic to.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I gave up chocolate one year, that was surprisingly easy. Meat was really tough, I ended up eating more fish and fewer vegetarian meals than normal. I had previously had no idea I was such a carnivore.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I'm vegetarian and already gave up meat sometime in the distant past. I spent the month of January being vegan and not drinking alcohol, and that went okay.

Never attempted to give up coffee. I don't think I'd necessarily find it that hard to give up coffee, but think I'd find it more difficult if I had to give up all caffeine.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

By coffee, I mean tea, since I consume no coffee.

I frequently give up alcohol for Lent, sometimes at quite surprising times of year. Because my father was an alcoholic, whenever I find myself thinking "ooh, a drink" rather than "yum" when I drink alcohol, I immediately impose Lent and don't have a drink for six weeks. Actually this is a value of "frequently" that means "every few years".

If you give up meat entirely for six weeks and then go back to eating it at modern Western levels of consumption, you will very likely have an upset stomach for a few days. This won't apply if you keep eating fish and eat meat on Sundays, it has to do with bacteria.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Interesting final paragraph--I've been vegan and then pisco-vegan for two years now, and I wondered about what would happen if I ate, say, turkey thigh. There does seem to be a different issue that I might run into problems on, having to do with what types of fat one is used to.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

carandol my ex-husband is vegetarian, and when we lived together I mostly cooked vegetarian because cooking two meals is more irritating for me than not eating meat. I'd eat meat occasionally -- whenever we ate out, or sometimes I'd buy myself a chicken leg or a chop or something. But it so happened one of those times that I'd by chance gone a couple of months without meat, and when I had a delicious chicken leg it gave me an upset gut. I then paid attention to how often I ate meat, and found four weeks was OK and six wasn't, and that fish counted as meat to my stomach bacteria.

(One odd consequence of this is that I tend to think of meat as a daring and interesting ingredient in dishes that are mostly vegetables, like lasagne.)

I've never tried being vegan -- when I lived with Ken I used to eat plenty of butter and cheese, probably more than now. So I don't know, but it seems to me you're making a good guess on the fats.

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I'm the first of a hundred boring people to say so, but I don't think your poll applies to people like me because it seems to be aimed at ranking hard-to-give-up things and I wouldn't find most of those things hard to give up.

I've been a vegetarian for 20 years and I'm not bothered about coffee. I don't have an iPad, I don't eat anchovies, I'm only just overcoming a deep aversion to broccoli and I don't know what Starcraft 2 is (a computer game?). So the only thing that would be a sacrifice to give up would be the alcohol, and in the past I've gone months without drinking and not even noticed.

But if you asked me to give up tea, or chick-lit, or cheese... well, then I'd be struggling.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

I sympathise, if only loosely. I don't buy or cook much meat (about twice a week, probably), I gave up coffee almost without meaning to after my PhD (although I still drink it now and then) and I don't drink a lot either, despite my partner being a publican. I would notice if I had to cut out any of the three for a significant amount of time, but would probably shrug over it rather than tearing my hair out.

Things I would find damn hard to give up: tea, bananas, bread, eggs.

[liv]

Wait, you gave up coffee?! That really does not seem in character.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

One thing emerging from these comments is that going to tea from coffee is less like giving something up and more like satisfying that urge in a different way. I guess put that way, I've been very good at the latter and it only looks like the former. For me, tea is no substitute for coffee, so that really would be giving something up.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

*shrug* You would think so, right? I mean, I've been a habitual coffee drinker since I was about 13, excepting long periods spent overseas where good coffee is not available (I'm looking at you, Bolivia). But the addiction/habit got quite ridiculous during bad writing-up years, when I would procrastinate all day, make a pot of espresso at 10pm with the intention of staying up late, drink it all and still be sound asleep by 2am with nothing written. So coffee has some bad associations for me. And once I had written the thesis (well, cough, written the version I handed in), I just reckoned that I would lay off the caffeine and be less tense and irritable.

Obviously, I still drink it now and then, if it's a very early start or I'm feeling particularly dull-witted, or I'm at a cafe with a friend. I still like the stuff. I just tend to have a cup of tea instead when I get up.

[liv]

OK, so having really horrible associations about relying on it when you were writing up makes a lot of sense. I freeted about buying coffee that was good enough for your standards when you came to visit, cos I don't know anything about coffee. Now I feel silly.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

I barely drink alcohol these days. Meat would be hardest as I'd have to completely rethink my standard set of easy/healthy/quick/cheap meals.

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

Having temporarily or permanently given up all three, I think I can rank things for myself reasonably well.

Starcraft 2... meh. I didn't so much give it up as get bored of it. Now World of Warcraft, that's something worthy of a poll question.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I have an addictive enough personality that I have very carefully vowed not to touch World of Warcraft, and tore up with great care the free-week-of-play voucher that came in my SC2 box. A friend of mine got very rapidly to the point of playing WoW rather than sleeping; he has the hacker nature pretty strongly, so made a lot of gold through arbitrage in the early days of the game ...

[txanne.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* I slept badly and picked the wrong thing--I should have put "meat, than alcohol, than coffee/tea/cocoa/comforting warm drink."

[lnr]

If you click on the poll results you can click "fill out poll" to change your answers.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Hurray! All this time on LJ and I still had no idea. Thank you!

[ellarien]

I can go without alcohol for months on end without missing it, bar the Sunday-morning sip in church, and I can go meatless for days in a row, but I can't remember the last time I went a day without coffee.

I suspect giving up the internet would be even worse.

[lnr]

Having utterly failed to get up as usual this morning I have decided that for the *rest* of lent I'm going to attempt to give up the snooze button on my alarm clock (and actually get up).

[liv]

I don't do Lent, but I do keep religious dietary restrictions year-round.

I did in fact largely give up meat aged 16, and I don't miss it at all. Since it's consistent with my principles to consume halal meat, I sometimes do, but it's about once a year and mainly because I have a few friends who really, really pine to eat meat with me, so I indulge them. Giving up fully would hardly be noticeable, and indeed I'm seriously considering giving up fish to be properly vegetarian.

I don't drink coffee; I tried to acquire the taste to fit in with the surrounding culture when I lived in Sweden, and it didn't really take. I got to the point where if it's offered in a situation where refusing or asking for tea instead would be rude, I can tolerate it, but it's not really a pleasant experience.

I put alcohol last because meat and coffee aren't really pleasures for me at all, but I don't think I would find it much of a hardship to give up alcohol either. I rarely drink and when I do it's for the taste rather than the alcohol.

Things I would find it hard to give up: cheese, and dairy products in general, though I don't feel very ethically comfortable about supporting industrial dairy farms. I would really find it hard to live without tea, and I think I'm pretty incapable of giving up the internet.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeesh, I didn't even want to bring the internet into it. I was about to claim that I had a really non-addictive personality (have taken up smoking a few times and dropped it again without any pangs, stopped drinking coffee, marijuana sits unsmoked in my sock drawer for years on end, etc), but the internet is a SIGNIFICANT exception to all of that, LJ and twitter particularly. It's a bit like being asked to give up my friends.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

^^^^ that was me, sorry!

[liv]

I don't think it would be a reasonable expression of asceticism to give up the internet in the sense of being a means of communicating with my friends. But I could imagine giving up randomly surfing around, following links, reading blogs and articles that I find interesting but don't have any personal connection to the authors. That would be hard, because I'm massively addicted, but it might possibly make me a better person or even be spiritually fulfilling. I don't talk about an addiction to socializing with my friends, that's wholly a positive thing.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

My answers for Lent and for ever would be different, I suspect.

[carbonel]

Choosing alcohol as the easiest thing to give up was an easy decision: I can go weeks at a time without a drink, and it's pretty clear that while I have addictive aspects to my personality, they've never kicked in with regard to alcohol.

Meat vs. coffee is a harder choice. I gave up caffeine for several months when I was first doing Atkins, and it wasn't that much of a pain, so I know I can do it. And I like meat, but certainly don't need it. Either would be a minor sacrifice for a shortish length of time (like, say, Lent), and I'd probably get used to it if I had to give it up permanently, with rather more pain.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

I consume neither meat nor coffee, and only miniscule quantities of alcohol, so, er.

[simont]

I have given up both coffee and alcohol in the past, the former for years and the latter for weeks at a time. I've never deliberately given up meat, but if I happen to eat vegetarian meals several days running, I start to notice, and feel a sense of "aah, that's more like it" at my next meat meal. So I think that means coffee is easier than alcohol is easier than meat.

I disallowed broccoli as a reasonable object of asceticism because doing without it would either involve eating less healthily (asceticism is taken too far if it's at the expense of actual wellbeing) or replacing it in my diet with some other vegetable which would have a roughly similar level of luxuriousness (hence not really succeeding in asceticism at all).

However, in my book Lent is something that happens to other people. I've consumed coffee already today; this evening I will consume meat and broccoli, almost certainly use an iPad, and may well have a glass of something alcoholic just to make the point. I think deliberately going out and buying some anchovies and a copy of Starcraft 2 would probably be excessive, but I'll be thinking it.

[rmc28]

I don't drink coffee, but I answered as if it were diet coke. Alcohol is easy (I barely drink as it is), meat is pleasant but not essential, but going through a day without caffeine is not something I want to do.

The last time I gave up caffeine was when I was pregnant with Charles, and that was involuntary (I stopped liking it).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I would find it nigh-impossible to give up meat, as I'm already vegetarian, so I'd either have to commit a logical impossibility, or drastically restrict my indirect consumption of animal products (couning things like occasional non-vegetarian cheese as not really vegetarian but not really "meat".)

However I interpreted the question as "which would you rather do without" :) I would probably find it exceedingly difficult to give up something as widespread as meat, whatever my diet, but I think I would still vote the same way, hoping to learn to cook some interesting meals.

I presumed giving up coffee and alcohol didn't mean switching to other stimulants/social lubricants (which I've nearly done already). If so, I decided it was difficult, but I'd rather keep alcohol: I think a healthy life-style and good awareness of my bodily cycle ought to replace coffee as my source for awakeness, but sometimes alcohol is enjoyable in a way little else is (although I do enjoy doing stuff without alcohol that normally would entail it, but I'd rather not all the time, and I don't really like the idea of relying on drugs in general).